I love Allen West, but he is not of the depth to go further than Congressman.

Herman Cain had a moment in the sun, but has done little WORK since then and appears to have been a johhny-one-note

Ben Carson has our attention, but has ZERO political experience, and essentially no executive experience, and is a cipher on foreign affairs.

Clarence Thomas is a Justice, not a political figure.

Condaleeza Rice was not a Secretary of State of note. Other than that she is pure academic; she lacks political experience, executive experience, etc.

Of course I agree that all have been treated quite unfairly, but IMHO we need to keep looking.

Ummm - if you're looking for the perfect candidate with all the right qualifications, you're never going to find him. Abraham Lincoln, for God's sake, had no foreign policy or executive experience. And using the last several Democrat U.S. Presidents as a sample, MANY of them fall far short of the merits/qualifications of each of those on this list. Barack Obama is an obscene joke as a President. Surely any of those mentioned would do a better job than he has.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

When I said on CNN last night that President Obama had given a pretty good speech, and when Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rogers gave a very positive Republican response, I doubt any of us realized what the Democrats would go on to say about the President’s address.

After seeing some of their comments, however, I thought some of the best surrogates for Republicans last night were the Senate Democrats running for reelection. Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers, who leads the House Republican Conference, did an excellent job describing a conservative approach to governing. Her speech was warm, hopeful, and looked toward the future. She is a real leader in the party.

In contrast to the broadly positive assessment to the President’s speech among Republicans--notwithstanding our many policy disagreements--many members of Obama’s own party were amazingly critical.

Here’s what Senator Mark Pryor, the Arkansas Democrat, had to say about the President’s speech:

Overall, I'm disappointed with the President's State of the Union address because he was heavy on rhetoric, but light on specifics about how we can move our country forward.

I've always said that I'll work with the President when I think he's right, but oppose him when I think he's wrong. That's why I've opposed his policies on gun control, the Keystone Pipeline, military action in Syria, regulatory overreach on our farms — to name a few — and why I'll continue to oppose his agenda when it's bad for Arkansas and our country.

I had hoped he would strike a more bipartisan tone because, if recent history shows anything, red vs. blue is dead end politics.

Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat from Alaska, was even more blunt in his language. Asked if he would welcome the President to campaign with him in Alaska, the Senator responded:

First I’ll tell you when I ran and won was the same year he ran for his first election for the presidency. He lost Alaska by 22 points and I still won my election. If he wants to come up, I’m not really interested in campaigning.

What I’d like him to do is see why his policies are wrong--on ANWR for example. He opposes oil and gas development...I’d like to be able to show him some of the issues we’ve battled with the federal government on and try to get his policies changed that directly affect us.

He continued:

You have got to be very careful of how far you extend those executive powers...I think that's going to upset the balance and also create a lot of controversy not just from Republicans, but some of us that are much more moderate and view this careful balance that we have a role here...If they go too far you'll clearly hear push back from me. There's no question about it.

Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, echoed Begich’s criticism of the President’s promise to act on his own, without Congress. Manchin (who isn’t even up for reelection this year) said the idea “rubs a lot of people wrong. It rubs, I gotta be honest, me too...I think a couple of times the remarks were made like, ‘I will do, even exceed if I need to, to do what I think is right.’ And I’m praying to God that’s not what he meant and not what he tries to do.”

Also last night, Democratic Senator Mark Udall refused three times on CNN to say whether he would join the President for campaign events in his home state of Colorado, where he is on the ballot this fall. Senator Kay Hagan, another Democrat running for reelection, similarly declined to appear with the President at his recent event in North Carolina.

You know a president is really in trouble when his own party produces his harshest critics, and does so more than nine months before an election. Probably not since the Carter years have incumbents so conspicuously abandoned a president of their own party. And there is certainly more to come.

Perhaps a few of these senators now taking pains to distance themselves from the President should have considered the wishes of the people they represent when voting for Obamacare, for historically irresponsible budgets, and for consolidating Harry Reid’s power.

In November, the voters will decide whether they believe their senators are really independent voices in Washington, or whether these Democrats are just telling them what they want to hear.

The Obama administration’s indictment of critic Dinesh D’Souza on campaign finance law violations is a reminder that it’s dangerous to be in the opposition when the president is a lawless strongman who knows the media will protect him no matter what.

Democratic malefactors remained at large on Friday as D’Souza pleaded not guilty to charges that he directed two individuals to each make $10,000 donations to the campaign of Wendy Long, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, on the understanding he would reimburse them, which he did not long after.

The court in New York reportedly imposed unusually tough release conditions on the bestselling conservative author, ordering him to post a $500,000 bond and not to leave the country.

D’Souza’s attorney told U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman that the facts were more or less not in dispute. “I think there’s a dispute over how it happened and whether what happened violated federal law,” Benjamin Brafman said.

As The Blaze reports,

Outside court, Brafman said there was no corrupt intent, a necessary component of the law, in his client’s actions, and he said the $20,000 in donations fell short of the $25,000 required to bring a criminal case. He said it was a situation that was normally resolved with a fine rather than criminal charges. He said there was no request by D’Souza that Long do anything, and the Senate candidate had no knowledge that campaign finance rules had been violated. Brafman said D’Souza and Long had been friends since college and “at worst, this was an act of misguided friendship by D’Souza.”

So why was D’Souza subjected to serial killer treatment, arrested, incarcerated, maybe perp-walked, for something that’s roughly the campaign finance law equivalent of a traffic ticket?

Could it be because D’Souza went too far in criticizing the notoriously thin-skinned Obama with his compelling, scathingly critical documentary, 2016: Obama’s America? The movie brought in an astounding $33 million in revenue, making it the second most popular political documentary in U.S. history behind Michael Moore’s lie-filled, anti-George W. Bush temper tantrum from 2004, Fahrenheit 9/11.

D’Souza is now arguably in trouble because Obama’s people promised retribution during the president’s second term. “After we win this election, it’s our turn. Payback time,” Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s close, trusted adviser, has been quoted saying in reference to the 2012 election. She warned:

“Everyone not with us is against us, and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded, the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay.”

Some Obama apologists, incidentally, suggest the Jarrett quotation is apocryphal. They may be right. Even if it is made up, it doesn’t matter. Chicagoan Jarrett is every bit as devious and vindictive an Alinskyite as Obama is. Whether Jarrett used those exact words or not, the quotation exquisitely encapsulates the beliefs of Obama’s inner circle, whether it’s Rahm Emanuel or Hillary Clinton bragging about the opportunities for change that a crisis presents, or Anita Dunn praising Mao Zedong, or Justice Department nominee Debo Adegbile proclaiming the innocence of cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Jarrett and Obama’s other advisers clearly think these Machiavellian thoughts every day.

Obama himself does not forgive and he does not forget. Obama threatened Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) during a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus soon after his first inauguration. “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama said in an effort to keep DeFazio, himself a radical leftist, in line.

An old associate of Obama and Bill Ayers from Chicago, Mike Klonsky, wrote a blog post on Jan. 24 suggesting he has special inside knowledge about why D’Souza was indicted.

“Note to Dinesh D’Souza — You probably shouldn’t have Tweeted that racist remark about Obama and Trayvon Martin. Shit like that sometimes comes back to haunt you.”

What was this “racist” remark exactly? Two days before Thanksgiving, D’Souza wrote on Twitter, “I am thankful this week when I remember that America is big enough and great enough to survive Grown-Up Trayvon in the White House!”

Given that Obama famously likened himself to Trayvon Martin, it’s difficult for rational people to understand what the fuss is all about. D’Souza merely threw Obama’s own words back at him. The tweet may be biting or mordant but there is nothing even remotely racist about it.

Whiny Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post was typical of the leftist lynch mob as he condemned the tweet as “vile” and having “racist implications” but didn’t bother explaining what exactly those racist implications were. Among today’s radical left-wingers, racism is in the eye of the beholder, and if you can’t see it for yourself, then presumably you’re part of the problem.

Republican D’Souza may be feeling the fury of an angry Democratic president, but there are plenty of Democrats who have escaped investigation/prosecution for the wrongdoings attributed to them.

Here are just a few of such individuals:

1) Eric Holder.

Purveyor of unequal justice for all.

Obama’s attorney general is so contemptuous of the rule of law and the constitutionally-prescribed oversight authority of Congress that the House of Representatives –including almost two dozen Democratic lawmakers– voted to find him in contempt of Congress on June 28, 2012. A hateful man who rhetorically spits on conservatives, Holder is a law enforcement chief who has made it clear he considers it his job only to protect the rights of minorities and left-wingers. If you’re not on his side or your skin is the wrong color, don’t even think about getting justice from his Justice Department.

As New York Times bestselling author of Injustice, J. Christian Adams, writes

“The havoc Holder has created goes far beyond corruption on any single issue. The damage he has done crosses all components of the Department of Justice, and has trickled down to infect the systems of law and legal jurisprudence throughout the country. He has tried to transform the federal agency intended to be above politics into an institution advocating radical change and extreme remedies.”

The litany of prosecutorial abuses and selective prosecutions under Holder grows. There is the DoJ’s refusal to take up cases involving alleged civil rights victims when the victim is white. There is also: the crackdown on Gibson Guitars; the overzealous, possibly malicious, prosecution of investigative journalist James O’Keefe III; using federal resources to agitate for a state-level prosecution of George Zimmerman based on trumped up charges; using federal resources to help anarchists and activists from the violent Occupy Wall Street movement agitate at the Republican National Convention in 2012; the DoJ vendetta against Fox News and reporter James Rosen; and the DoJ’s flagrant manipulation of the 2012 election.

Holder also spearheaded an attack on the Second Amendment and lied to Congress about it. He flooded the U.S. border with Mexico with illicit firearms, leading to the deaths of a U.S. border patrol officer and many Mexican nationals.

2) Maxine Waters.

Race hustler and corrupt-o-crat.

Few politicians combine ignorance, obstinate self-righteousness, racial demagoguery, and extremism quite as perfectly as the congresswoman from South Central who has become a major force shaping federal banking policy. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a longtime cheerleader for Fidel Castro, was only too happy to use the 1992 Los Angeles riots as a political advertisement. She viewed the 53 deaths, thousands of injuries, and $1 billion in property damage as a shining example of participatory democracy. The word riot never escaped her lips. She called the unrest a “rebellion” and “a spontaneous reaction to a lot of injustice and a lot of alienation and frustration.”

“She is one of the most self-serving, hate-filled, race-obsessed politicians in America,” says columnist Michelle Malkin. “The Democratic Party doesn’t just embrace her. It kneels at her feet.”

A few years ago Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) named Waters as one of the 13 “most corrupt” members of the U.S. Congress. CREW cited a Los Angeles Times investigation disclosing how a number of Waters’s relatives had made more than $1 million during the preceding eight years by doing business with companies, candidates, and causes that Waters had assisted. The lawmaker has had frequent run-ins with House ethics authorities.

3) Harry Reid.

Senate Majority Leader and rich guy.

For someone with a relatively clean reputation among the press, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) certainly has been involved in a lot of shady deals. Reid has allegedly illegally accepted gifts, commingled personal and campaign funds, and made a handsome profit a decade ago on a questionable land deal. He misreported the transaction on congressional disclosure forms and stonewalled when pressed for details.

Between 2001 and 2004, Reid, in apparent violation of Senate ethics provisions, wrote at least four letters pressing the Bush administration to take action on issues important to Indian tribes that were clients of the notoriously corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff. CBS News reports that “starting in the mid-1990s, he [Abramoff] became a master at showering gifts on lawmakers in return for their votes on legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients.” Eventually Abramoff was convicted in federal court of corrupting public officials, tax evasion, and fraud, and he served three-and-a-half years in prison.

During the 2001-04 period, Abramoff’s staff was in regular contact with Reid’s office. Whenever Reid wrote a letter on behalf of the Indian tribes, he reportedly collected donations from Abramoff’s lobbying partners and clients around the same time period. These donations totaled nearly $68,000, yet the Abramoff affair has been labeled a “Republican” scandal.

In August 2012, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Reid was strong-arming NV Energy, Nevada’s primary electricity provider, to purchase more “green energy” from a Chinese solar company named ENN Mojave Energy LLC. This happened even though NV Energy had already exceeded its state-mandated quota for green energy (which generated higher electric bills for customers). “There’s another factor, however,” noted the newspaper, “one more personal to Reid: His son, Rory Reid, is one of the attorneys for the ENN Mojave Energy project…. Success for ENN in finding customers helps Rory Reid, and its failure could cost him a client.”

4) Lois Lerner.

Tax bureaucrat from Hell.

Former Obama IRS Exempt Organizations Division Director Lois Lerner remains at large after (improperly) taking the Fifth Amendment at congressional hearings. Lerner earned her place in infamy when she presided over her IRS division’s targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups. Right-of-center nonprofit groups were subjected to extra scrutiny under Lerner and their applications for tax-exempt status were routinely delayed. Lerner engaged in similar shenanigans when she ran the Enforcement Division of the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

5) Wade Rathke.

Shakedown artist and coverup expert.

Eric Holder’s Justice Department has not investigated the man who founded the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in 1970 and ran it into the ground until its board fired him in 2008. Wade Rathke orchestrated a massive internal coverup after his brother Dale Rathke embezzled close to $1 million from ACORN around 2000. Some of the money was taken from ACORN employees’ pension funds.

Before it filed for bankruptcy on Election Day 2010, ACORN was an essential part of the Democratic Party’s voter fraud apparatus for decades so it’s not surprising that Rathke got off scot-free. Rathke has even been rewarded by the Obama administration. United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 100 in New Orleans, which Rathke heads, has received federal funding to enroll people in Obamacare exchanges.

6) David Brock.

Character assassin, gun-toting hypocrite, and Obama publicist.

Media Matters for America (MMfA) founder and George Soros lieutenant David Brock is an admitted liar who claims that Hillary Clinton’s enemies invented the Benghazi scandal to undermine her presidential run. But it’s not illegal to be a pathologically mendacious sleaze or to slither around on the same moral plane as a 9/11 truther conspiracy theorist.

Although MMfA constantly advocates for tougher gun laws, like many wealthy left-wingers, Brock doesn’t believe that gun laws apply to him. The Daily Caller reported that he told friends and co-workers that right-wing assassins were trying to kill him. Brock’s personal assistant reportedly carried a concealed Glock handgun around the District of Columbia, where it is illegal to do so, in order to protect Brock.

Because Brock is a friend of the Obama administration, no action has been taken against him. (Presumably if charges were to be pursued against Brock it would be done by the local government for the District of Columbia but it’s not as if the Obama administration has no pull with that Democrat-controlled local government.)

It is also not illegal to operate political propaganda machinery while suffering from serious mental illness though one has to question why donors would keep funding an organization run by such an unstable individual.

—-

Will any of these shady Democrats be investigated or prosecuted during the balance of President Obama’s term in office?

Don’t count on it.

« Last Edit: January 31, 2014, 11:22:27 AM by objectivist1 »

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Thanks for that, Obj. This administration makes Nixon with his enemy list look restrained. D'Souza made a mistake and should pay whatever penalty anyone and everyone else pays for a same or similar mistake. But the mistake was the campaign law violation, not that he dared to exercise unflattering political speech about this President and this administration.

Para Bellum will allow the RNC to continue building a new tech-centered mindset, while increasing visibility and credibility in the tech community to attract top talent who want to solve big tech problems. Para Bellum will participate in the technical and open source community, starting with a 5-campus tour at top engineering schools and hosting a political hackathon in the future.

Para Bellum will allow the RNC to continue building a new tech-centered mindset, while increasing visibility and credibility in the tech community to attract top talent who want to solve big tech problems. Para Bellum will participate in the technical and open source community, starting with a 5-campus tour at top engineering schools and hosting a political hackathon in the future.

Given that this is a RNC operation, I expect that the computers will be windows 3.1 with floppy disks.

Para Bellum will allow the RNC to continue building a new tech-centered mindset, while increasing visibility and credibility in the tech community to attract top talent who want to solve big tech problems. Para Bellum will participate in the technical and open source community, starting with a 5-campus tour at top engineering schools and hosting a political hackathon in the future.

Given that this is a RNC operation, I expect that the computers will be windows 3.1 with floppy disks.

In recent years, at least since 2011, there has been a decline in the amount of money spent on lobbying, although the trend is not as monotonic as the Opensecrets’ presentation suggests.

What explains these trends?

One possibility is that lobbying firms have just gotten more efficient. They can deliver the same amount of “punch” (i.e., influence) with fewer lobbyists and less expenditures on direct lobbying. This may be possible; however since the percent change over time is not constant, even for the last few years, it doesn’t seem to be the case that K-street is just more efficient. It seems more likely that they are supplementing their (reported) lobbying elsewhere.

Obama's Secret Strategy By DICK MORRISPublished on TheHill.com on February 25, 2014

President Obama and his newest counsel, John Podesta, are using the same executive action strategy we saw during the 1995-96 Clinton campaign to gain traction in public opinion even with a hostile Congress. But Republicans and conservatives do not understand exactly what his moves are all about and are at a loss to counter them.

The Gallup poll amply demonstrates the effectiveness of the president's new strategy, showing his ratings rising from a low of 39 percent to a recent range of 43 percent to 46 percent in the latest three-day rolling average. This steady advance in poll numbers duplicates exactly what was found during the Clinton years when his executive action strategy was applied.

Republicans and conservatives are outraged that the president is usurping congressional prerogatives with his executive orders and new federal regulations. They see Obama's actions primarily in terms of their public policy implications and the impact on the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of government.

But there is far more at work than meets the eye.

Obama has two objectives in his current approach: to do everything he can to distract public attention from his disastrous healthcare program; and to highlight popular positions on issues including the minimum wage, environmental protection, fuel efficiency standards, sexual harassment in the military, gun control, employment of the long-term jobless and immigration.

But he knows presidential speeches and proposals are often not covered by the media or are consigned to the back pages of newspapers. So, where possible, he accompanies his rhetoric with an executive order, to force prominent coverage, because it then becomes hard news. The media has to cover executive orders. The orders have a reality, even if their actual scope can be limited, that mere speeches do not.

As a result, Obama is out there day after day speaking out on well-polled topics on which he knows he will get a favorable reception, emphasizing how his program is much more varied and appetizing than his healthcare program is turning out to be. It's like when, a few years ago, a paint company wanted to position itself as an alternative to Home Depot and sell a range of home improvement products, so it adopted the slogan "It ain't just paint." Obama's would be "It ain't just healthcare."

How can Republicans answer? Neither Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) nor Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can hope to equal the president's outsized megaphone or to compete with the range of policies he can pursue. Indeed, the media has become so used to one-house bills that aren't going anywhere that they no longer afford them prominent coverage.

But legislative hearings are quite another matter. Their drama, force and impact can be huge, and they make great copy for media and print outlets.

Republicans must not sit passively by and watch Obama pile up good poll numbers. They have to hit back with hearings of their own, using their control of the gavel in House committees, to emphasize their issues.

The GOP should hold hearings on the damage being done by ObamaCare to doctors, hospitals, employers and covered Americans.

We need to revisit Benghazi to come to understand how the fictitious talking points about an Internet video came to the fore in discussions about the attack.

IRS leaders have some explaining to do concerning their scores of White House visits and meetings with the president, especially one by former Commissioner Douglas Shulman the day before he issued new regulations on how to treat conservative groups applying for tax exemptions.

We need to learn the genesis of the decision to confiscate Associated Press phone records.

And we must get to the bottom of Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's solicitation of donations from interested parties to publicize ObamaCare enrollment.

Point well taken. In my view, the speeches by Ben Carson, Mia Love, Herman Cain, Alan West, TJ Shannon, Tim Scott, (as well as speeches by Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Newt Gingrich, Marco Rubio and others) are also outreaches to minorities, in fact if not in title.

Sixty-one percent of Republican-leaning adults ages 18-29 say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, according to a Pew Research Center study released Monday. That number sharply contrasts the views of the party’s older members, for whom gay marriage support drops off sharply at each age increment.

THE FOUNDATION"When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 71, 1788TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKSPrison for Climate DeniersYou may have never heard of Lawrence Torcello, but he wants to put you in prison. Torcello is an assistant philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, and he wrote recently that the "well documented funding of global warming denialism" is not only wrong but "ought to be considered criminally negligent." He complains that "climate denial remains a serious deterrent against meaningful political action in the very countries most responsible for the crisis." And his solution is, "The charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend to all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding as part of a sustained campaign to undermine the public's understanding of scientific consensus." And here we thought science was forming and testing hypotheses, not burning heretics at the stake.Comment | Share Biden Saves the DayThe situation in Ukraine must be worse than we thought because the White House dispatched Joe Biden to "reassure our allies" in Eastern Europe that everything will be all right. In fact, he told Polish President Bronislaw Komorowsk, "You have an ally whose [defense] budget is larger than the next 10 nations in the world combined, so don't worry about where we are." Of course, Barack Obama is doing his best to cut that budget down to size, not to mention that he pulled the rug out from under Poland on missile defense. Forgive us, but sending Joe Biden to deter Vladimir Putin isn't the most reassuring thing we can think of. But maybe as long as he took his double barrel shotgun and can fire off a couple of rounds, our allies will feel safe.Comment | Share ObamaCare Horror StoryLarry Basich of Las Vegas is discovering just how convoluted and unaffordable the "Affordable" Care Act is. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports, "Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state's Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall. He's been paying monthly premiums since November. Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man's-land where no carrier claims him, and his tab is mounting: Basich owes $407,000 for care received in January and February, when his policy was supposed to be in effect. Instead, he's covered only for March and beyond." Interestingly, the Review-Journal adds this little tidbit: "Even [Harry] Reid, who took flak for his Feb. 26 statement that 'all' Obamacare 'horror stories' are 'untrue,' is trying to help." Perhaps he'd be of most help by publicly admitting he lied, and that ObamaCare is not the health solution everyone's looking for. We can dream at least.Comment | Share Winning in RegulationAccording to a new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Barack Obama has expanded the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) by some 17,522 pages, an 11% increase. That's an average of 3,504 pages every year. And he's still got three years in office. (The CFR is the "codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register.") The problem is that Obama operates with a pen and a phone to act wherever Congress doesn't or won't do his bidding. When socialists can't legislate the centralization of free enterprise, they regulate it.Comment | Share All the Phone CallsIn the latest revelations about the National Security Agency, The Washington Post reports that the agency "has built a surveillance system capable of recording '100 percent' of a foreign country's telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place." The Post won't say which nation, but it's almost irrelevant -- the NSA is able to do this, began it in 2009, and may soon expand the program, called MYSTIC, into other countries. "Analysts listen to only a fraction of 1 percent of the calls, but the absolute numbers are high," notes the Post. "Each month, they send millions of voice clippings, or 'cuts,' for processing and long-term storage."Comment | Share For more, visit Right Hooks.

Share RIGHT ANALYSISThe Arrogance of ObamaCare

ObamaCare hit a milestone Monday, as the Obama administration announced that five million people have now enrolled for health insurance under the law. That's approaching the six million that the Congressional Budget Office projected would enroll by March 31. But there's more than meets the eye here.The White House still won't say how many people have paid their premiums (i.e., actually enrolled). It also won't tell us how many enrollees were previously insured. Millions of Americans saw their health plans cancelled because of the law's regulations. The law says plans must cover all kinds of "comprehensive" things, so when a plan changed slightly after the law went into effect, it then had to comply with all of ObamaCare's regulations -- hence the cancellations. If new enrollments are substantially made up of previously covered but subsequently cancelled people, that's hardly a success. In fact, it's often replacing a decent plan with a worse one that costs more.According to one recent survey, one in three uninsured Americans plans to remain that way. That's in large part thanks to skyrocketing premiums that will double in some parts of the country. The sticker shock is deterring many and causing those who do sign up to choose the bottom-rung "bronze" plans. Folks would rather pay the fine (ahem, the "tax") of 1% of adjusted gross income and only sign up when they get sick. Who can blame them when the administration keeps delaying any penalties?The White House has taken to entertaining, nagging and cajoling the young people ObamaCare must enroll in large numbers in order for it to "work." To subsidize the old and sick, the law depends on 40% of enrollees being young and healthy. But only about 25% of enrollees are young and it's a safe bet they're not as healthy on average as their age suggests, which means they won't balance the additional costs of the old and sick.One of the core problems with ObamaCare is the designers' arrogance. Congressional Democrats thought that in a nation of more than 300 million people only they were smart and benevolent enough to design a health care law to fit everyone. But it will only work if participation is mandated. It's hard to think of something more antithetical to the principles upon which the nation was founded. And it's no wonder it isn't working.Comment | Share The History Lesson in Ukraine

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." As the world sits and watches Russia gobble up the Crimea, George Santayana's words ring just as true today as when he wrote them over a hundred years ago. With Vladimir Putin citing the "self-determination" of ethnic Russians as justification for annexing the Crimea, it's all the more startling that so many in the West seem unable to remember another man who claimed he merely wanted to protect ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia.Read the rest of the story here.24 Medals of Honor Awarded

In 2002, the National Defense Authorization Act prompted a review of Jewish American and Hispanic American veteran war records from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to determine if actions worthy of the Medal of Honor had been overlooked because of discrimination.On Tuesday, 24 veterans of those wars received the Medal of Honor. Each had previously received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest award. Vietnam veterans Sgt. 1st Class Melvin Morris, Master Sgt. Jose Rodela and Spc. Santiago Erevia all attended and received their medals, while the others were given posthumously. Ten of the 24 men never came home, and one is still missing.

I recently read somewhere about the fortunes of past Presidents. Many in the 19th century died with nothing or very little. Unlike politicians of today who get wealthy either while in office or by selling their connections later. Their families all seem to cash in too.

While it can be good fun here making cracks about "Forke Tonge" Warren, out in the real world of getting votes that is going to fall real flat. The question remains-- how to respond to what she is saying, AND WITH WHICH SHE SCORING WITH LOTS OF VOTERS?

No argument from me on any of that but still you have not answered my question. Is she not right about quite a bit in her criticisms? Aren't many of them the same ones we level here? What do you say to those underemployed baristas so they want to vote FOR free minds and free markets and the US Constitution?

Should we bail out too big to fail? Obviously not. Nor should taxpayers subsidize academics that serve only to propagandize rather than educate.

As for the millenials who voted themselves into serfdom? Howabout we give them something that says "I voted away my chance at a middle class lifestyle and all I got was this lousy Obama-Biden bumper sticker".

The clips failed for me part way in. All I heard was a bunch of BS. When she was growing we invested in public universities, minimum wage etc.

I don't know where she went from there but do we really not make enough public investments now? Government-set minimum wage made us great? Good grief.

If she led from there to Wall Street, it is our BUNGLED regulations that are making people disproportionately rich on Wall street. It is not a case of free markets running wild.

Crafty, what are the points she makes that you find compelling? The area where far left and right should find agreement is to stop giving special favors to the powerful. Don't crush investment banks, just stop giving special interests special favors. The best way to accomplish that would be with smaller government. I doubt if that was her conclusion.

" The area where far left and right should find agreement is to stop giving special favors to the powerful"

Agreed. But I never hear this from the Right. Nothing wrong with getting rich honestly. But to enhance the advantages they already have just makes it worse.

You even begin to level the playing field with petty minimum wage regulations. I don't understand why the NAACP is marching into McDonald's headquarters screaming for an increase in chump change. Who in their right mind goes to work for McDs serving burgers as a career? You either try to move up to better management positions or go to school or some other endeavor with a real future.

The NAACP should be marching into the "f" White House demanding the ONE to stop allowing people to flood into our country driving down wages for those already here.

Of course wages are a few bucks an hour. Every single fast food place around here has people with accents. So yea, big companies love this.

"The area where far left and right should find agreement is to stop giving special favors to the powerful"

"Agreed. But I never hear this from the Right. "

EXACTLY SO. In making this point I think we should avoid the term "crony capitalism" because it contains the word "capitalism". Perhaps "cronyism"? or "crony progressivism"? or?

Regardless, we need to seriously hammer home that it is the progressives/Dem/walls street patrician Reps who are the Washington Party that the Tea Party rejects in favor of real people in the real world living real lives.

Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, among others, has identified the administration's predictable five-step response to a scandal:

Step One: Say "We had no idea."Step Two: Express great outrage. Step Three: Fire some low-level employee. Step Four: Announce a review, a study, or an investigation; deny any further comment or action until the end of the investigation. This step can stretch on for weeks, months, or years, and let the outraged public forget about it.Step Five: This is old news, the Republicans are playing politics with it, "Dude, this was like, two years ago."

I think this is a rare truth coming from an analyst from the left. If you divide the voters in half, those with incomes above 50k, roughly the median income and those below, Republicans win the upper group, but by not that large a margin and by a fairly predictable amount. According to this analysis, Democrats win nationally when they carry those making less than 50k/yr by closer to 20 points and lose nationally when they carry that group by closer to 10 points.

"Republicans consistently win voters making $50,000 or more, approximately the U.S. median income. The margin doesn't vary too much: In 2012, Mitt Romney got 53 percent of this group's vote; in 2010, Republican House candidates got 55 percent. And Democrats consistently win voters making less than the median—but the margin varies widely."

Republicans for What?The GOP won't get the victory it seeks without a positive agenda.WSJ

Sept. 3, 2014 7:47 p.m. ET

The post-Labor Day election campaign is underway, and the early conventional wisdom is that Republican hopes of a 2010-style wave are fading. GOP gains in the House could only be a few seats and the six pickups to take the Senate are still uncertain. This is coming from the usual liberal suspects, but it is also whispered by GOP strategists. Maybe Republicans should try to improve their odds by telling voters what they would do if they win.

By any typical political measure, this ought to be a great Republican year. President Obama is widely unpopular, the Senate playing field is largely in conservative states, the tide of war is rising around the world, and gains in stocks and other asset prices haven't translated into higher wages for most Americans. Many Republicans look at this and think they can win merely by running to be a check on Mr. Obama.Enlarge Image

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The trouble is that the House GOP already provides that check, and voters are even more unhappy with Congress than they are with Mr. Obama. The kamikaze government shutdown, among other fits of temper, has so tarnished the GOP reputation that even many voters who dislike Mr. Obama might stay home in November.

It's true that individual candidates are running on their own issues. Repeal ObamaCare is popular in GOP precincts, even if can't happen with Mr. Obama in office. And everyone favors the Keystone XL pipeline.

But the lack of any common GOP agenda is leading to the perception of a policy vacuum that plays into Mr. Obama's critique that Republicans are opposed to everything. The President's proposal to raise the minimum wage may be irrelevant to most Americans, but at least it's something. And something usually beats nothing.

The current GOP campaign also plays into the Democratic strategy to make every Senate race an ugly brawl between two equally tarnished candidates. Harry Reid's SuperPac is spending millions of dollars to define GOP challengers as creatures from the black lagoon. Since they're mostly defending incumbents who are better known, Democrats figure they have the better chance to win a character fight. This is one reason races in Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana and Alaska continue to be close.

Especially as Election Day nears and disengaged voters pay attention, Republicans need to show voters what they're for. This doesn't have to be another Contract with America, a la Newt Gingrich in 1994. Given intra-GOP differences, the better model might be the Pelosi Democrats in 2006. Despite being dominated by war horses from the Great Society, those Democrats focused on six smallish ideas that united their ranks and didn't scare moderates unhappy with George W. Bush.

The political point is to focus on a few proposals that address voter concerns and that Republicans could pass and put on Mr. Obama's desk if they win both houses of Congress. This would give the GOP something positive to talk about, beginning the long process of repairing their public image.

It would also educate their own voters about what is achievable if they do take Congress. The worst outcome would be for Republicans to take the Senate by one or two seats and then fail to deliver anything because their yahoos demand the impossible. That would set up Hillary Clinton to run against the failures of a GOP Congress in 2016, and perhaps deny them a governing majority if a Republican does win back the White House.

We don't know what the GOP House and Senate campaign committees might agree on, but here are a couple of ideas that would combine GOP principles with populist notes that fit the public mood:

• Pick up former Senator Phil Gramm's proposal to offer the freedom option in health insurance, letting individuals opt out of ObamaCare's regulations to buy the policies they want. This would address the concerns of voters who lost the insurance they liked or are paying more. The White House and left would howl, but many Democrats would find it hard to oppose.

• Promise to repeal "too big to fail." Even Mr. Obama's regulators recently admitted this policy remains in place when they rejected the "living wills" that banks must propose under Dodd-Frank. This is a populist way to reopen the issue of financial regulation.

• Go beyond Keystone XL by promising to quickly and greatly increase domestic energy production and exports. This would appeal to union voters as a jobs measure, to consumers in potentially lower energy costs, and to Americans concerned about growing turmoil in Europe and the Middle East. U.S. natural gas exports could make our allies less dependent on Gazprom. GAZP.RS -12.44%

This is far from a complete list, but the point is to run a campaign that is about more than attacking Mr. Obama. Most Americans already regret re-electing him. But they are more likely to give Republicans the big majorities they seek if they also sense their lives might be better with a GOP Congress.

Americans are demanding economic growth from a President whose entire economic focus throughout his political career prior to being President was on anti-growth policies and rhetoric.

Americans are demanding military action in the Middle East from a President whose rise to power was based on promising to ignore these risks an just remove us from all military involvement in the Middle East.

Wouldn't it have been better to have chosen a President who had prior interest, experience, and/or expertise in these areas?